Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah was born in Handsworth, Birmingham, to a Barbadian postman father and a Jamaican nurse mother. Dyslexic and leaving school at thirteen unable to read or write, he spent time in borstal and prison before moving to London at twenty-two to perform dub poetry—spoken-word poetry chanted over Jamaican reggae riddims.

Zephaniah democratized poetry for working-class and Black youth, publishing acclaimed collections like Pen Rhythm (1980) and Talking Turkeys (1994). In 2003, he made international headlines by publicly rejecting an Order of the British Empire (OBE) from Queen Elizabeth II, declaring: "No way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I get angry when I hear the word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery and thousands of years of brutality." He was a close friend of Nelson Mandela and gained millions of global fans playing the eccentric street preacher Jeremiah Jesus in BBC's hit drama series Peaky Blinders from 2013 to 2022.